There is a post on affiliate blackhat PPC on the PPC Blog that any affiliate manager should read as a primer on cheating affiliates.

The tactics are focused on things like geotargeting and dayparting to hide forbidden affiliate PPC campaigns from affiliate managers.

There are a number of tricks I have seen used to bend completely flaunt many affiliate programs terms & policies. One of the most common PPC policies is to disallow affiliates from bidding against merchant brand terms, as the merchant will generally get that sale 99% of the time anyway not having to pay a premium to an affiliate for it. From the other side, obviously it makes sense for an affiliate to bid against brand as it cuts away the hard work of finding a niche as & they know it will convert. It’s a low hanging fruit.

Another popular affiliate network policy is to ban affiliates from sending traffic direct to a merchants site because the merchant or ad agency are already running a paid search campaign, the merchant does not trust affiliates to uphold their “brand image” within adverts or perhaps for a variety of other reasons.

Here are the areas detailed in the post, Flaunting Affiliate Network Rules With Blackhat PPC:

Bidding At Certain Times

Geo-targeting

IP Exclusion

Advert Tricks

Masking Affiliate URLs

Sending Traffic To A Different Domain

Using Broad Match To Bypass Trademarks

If you don’t already cover these issues in your affiliate agreement, be sure to revise it now.

And don’t just file this away. I know a lot of affiliate managers are already monitoring this sort of behavior – if you manage an affiliate program and don’t keep an eye on this stuff, it’s time to start.

Google AdSense may be coming to Facebook applications, according to Steve Rubel of the Micro Persuasion blog.

Steve referred to a quote from Google CEO Eric Schmidt in AdAge …

“How will those developers get paid for those services? We would like to have our ads in those applications.”

While Google would certainly like to have penetration on every square pixel of the Internet, I think Facebook and the developers can figure this out on their own.

In some cases, like the Ask Affiliate Summit app, we don’t want ads polluting the landscape. It’s meant to be a branding exercise.

Other Facebook applications are using direct and indirect means to gather leads, as well as leveraging affiliate marketing in various ways, such as the Chitika, Shopping Bargains, and other affiliate apps.

I enjoy many social networks and find value from them in various ways. But there are too many out there, and I have no interest in joining most of them.

But don’t tell that to somebody who I will call Lisa S.

I first got to know her when she invited me to be her friend at Multiply earlier this year. I searched my brain and Google Desktop and nothing turned up for this stranger.

Soon after, she invited me to join her on bebo. This time she invited me with two different e-mails that I use.

A few days passed and she invited me to PerfSpot.com. Again with both e-mails – this would be a trend that carried on from there.

And then there was friendster. This time there was a breakthrough – her Hotmail address was in the invite, rather than just a corporate no-reply e-mail.

I sent a note asking her to stop with the invitations. No response. No let up with the invites.

Next up was a request to join her at radiusIM, followed by a request from me for her to please go away.

By now, the reminders from the previous invites were kicking in (friendster sends a lot of them!).

Then it was quiet for a couple of days. False hope, my inbox was then graced with a Kaboodle invite. I did a little digging and found some information on her – she apparently belonged to every social network I ever heard of, as well as 7,283 others.

I managed to find her Skype account and sent a message asking her to stop the madness. She responded the only way she knew how – she invited me to Melcrum’s Communicators’ Network.

That was today and I’m completely fed up – she never even invites me to private betas or anything. Just clown stuff that anybody can join.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m into friending folks I don’t know, but who have like interests, mutual colleagues, etc. But this serial social networking – it’s a tragic waste of human spirit.

I was unfazed by the controversial 2 girls 1 cup video, but these constant spamvites make my stomach turn.

For anybody out there that has even a little Lisa S. in them – turn off your computer tomorrow and get some sun. Stop the madness, if just for one day.

The Amazon Associates program has announced that affiliates can now earn 20% in referral fees on Amazon MP3 Downloads.

Amazon MP3 boasts Earth’s biggest selection of a la carte, DRM-free MP3 music downloads with over 2 million songs from more than 180,000 artists represented by over 20,000 major and independent labels.

All songs and albums on Amazon MP3 are available exclusively in the MP3 format without digital rights management (DRM) software, so Amazon MP3 customers are free to enjoy their music downloads using any hardware device, organize their music using any music management application, and burn songs to CDs.

Most songs are priced from 89 cents to 99 cents, with more than 1 million of the 2 million songs priced at 89 cents. The top 100 best-selling songs are 89 cents, unless marked otherwise. Most albums are priced from $5.99 to $9.99. The top 100 best-selling albums are $8.99 or less, unless marked otherwise.

Every song on Amazon MP3 is encoded at 256 kilobits per second, which gives customers high audio quality at a manageable file size.

Now to the money part for affiliates. Amazon affiliates are eligible to earn 20% on all MP3 referrals (up to $1.50 per item) through December 31, 2007.

Beginning January 1, 2008 the referral fees will be 10%. There is no limit to the number of items on which referral fees are earned.

The Apple iTunes affiliate program pays 5% commission on all goods. So Amazon is paying significantly more than iTunes, but are people willing to change their habits in the way they purchase MP3s?

I always buy from iTunes, but I’m going to give Amazon MP3 Downloads a shot to see how smooth it is. Then, I’ll see if this service has the potential to be an iTunes killer.

Last week, when Google launched Video Units as part of AdSense, I was excited to try them out. Then I attempted to post the code on my WordPress blog and the video did not display.

I later found out that the reason here was that WordPress applies a JavaScript remover filter to posts. So AdSense, which uses JavaScript, does not display correctly. This can be fixed by using a plugin called Script Enabler.

I’m sure there are plenty of others, but I mention this one, because it’s the one I’m using.

The October 2007 issue of Affiliate Classroom Magazine is now available and the focus this month is on professionalizing your affiliate marketing efforts.

The “Expanding Horizons” article is helpful if you’re interested in breaking into the international market. You can find pointers on market research to pinpoint international issues and how to deal with payment and shipping problems before they arise.

Another article, “The 10 Biggest Unprofessional Mistakes That Many Affiliates Make,” illustrates how you could be making some fatal mistakes in your email marketing, product
selection, website development – or seven other areas.

Finally, there is “What Affiliates Don’t Know Can Hurt Them,” where you can learn how Internet business rules differ from traditional business rules, and how you can avoid making some costly mistakes.

Unfortunately, the site for Affiliate Classroom Magazine is no longer up.

Antitrust experts predict Google’s purchase of DoubleClick (part of DoubleClick Performics) for $3.1 billion will be approved by U.S. regulators, despite strong opposition from Microsoft and Yahoo, according to Reuters.

While Google’s rivals argue that the merger poses antitrust and privacy concerns, experts say advertising remains a big market and Internet advertising is wide open for new entrants. Privacy, they add, is not a core antitrust concern and regulators were unlikely to consider it when evaluating the merger.

Mark Kovner, an antitrust lawyer with Kirkland & Ellis, said the Federal Trade Commission was not inclined to block vertical mergers, which are usually the combination of two companies producing different goods or services for the same product.

“The agencies have been looking at head-to-head competition,” Kovner said, adding that putting search engine advertising into a separate market “seems like a jury-rigged market definition. To the outside observer it seems like advertising is a big wide open field.”